Dual Boot Issue

[Guest]

Hello,

My main PC had XP on it, I re-partitioned for space and installed Vista on a
seperate partiton. I was able to boot to either by marking either one as the
active partition in Disk Management.

I deleted XP and reinstalled it because of an issue. After the install I
was not able to mark the Vista partition as active, only booting to XP. I
repaired with the Vista DVD and then I couldn't mark XP as active, booting
directly to Vista.

I installed Vista Boot Pro and added the XP partition to the menu. When I
tried to boot XP I was given an error and told to use the CD and repair. I
did this and now I am back to not being able to access Vista. If I repair
Vista once again I assume I will not be able to boot to XP.


HELPPPPPPP!!!! This must be an easy fix I just dont know what to do.

Thanks

Steve

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

You shouldn't have had to keep switching the active partition in the first
place, nor should you need VistaBootPro. The primary partition is simply the
one that the mbr looks to for the boot files. It *should* be Vista's boot
files that are located there. Vista's bootloader should then give you the
choice of either it or the legacy operating system. Repair this by first
marking one volume as active, then boot the system with the Vista DVD and
run a startup repair. After loading Vista, run an elevated command prompt
(click start, type CMD, right click the entry in the boot menu and select
'run as admin'). From the prompt, run CD\ to get a C:\> prompt. From the
prompt, you can follow these instructions from here:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...c349-427c-b035-c2719d4af7781033.mspx?mfr=true

<quote>

Create a BCD entry for the older operating system by specifying the
following. Bcdedit.exe is located in the \Windows\System32 directory of the
Windows Vista partition. "Description" is the description of the new entry
for the older operating system.

Bcdedit /create {legacy} /d “Descriptionâ€

Bcdedit /set {legacy} device boot

Bcdedit /set {legacy} path \ntldr

Bcdedit /displayorder {legacy} /addlast

Restart the computer in order for the changes to take effect.

<end>

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Guest]

(e-mail address removed),

In respect to dual or multi booting with Vista, hindsight is the brilliant
teacher.

Specifically, and more importantly, what worked last week (dual / multi
booting) for defined, and intentionally not-defined reasons, just might not
work this day.

Closely read the second sentence (RTM, NOT RC2 anything) from jimmuh’s
previous Post of things and stuff learned the difficult method, not only
learned by jimmuh, many others have learned the same from trial and error
situations.

The below Post was written by “jimmuh†and is more accurate today compared
to the date Posted.

DUAL BOOT DIFFICULTIES
BELOW POSTED BY jimmuh 01-28-2007 within this Forum.
I'm afraid that I'm pretty much a bucket of cold water on this one. If you
want Vista and Windows XP to co-exist as multi-boot partners on the same
system you really need to use Vista Ultimate (RTM, NOT RC2 anything) with
BitLocker enabled and hiding Vista from WinXP BEFORE you ever reboot into
WinXP, or you need to use a third party boot manager to hide Vista from
WinXP. Otherwise, WinXP will immediately set about trashing System Restore
points and Shadow Copy data on the Vista partition during its first session.

Frankly, multi-booting Windows operating systems these days just seems like
a waste for almost all purposes. (YMMV) I'd definitely go with virtual
machines, either through one of the Microsoft offerings (VPC or Virtual
Server) or through VMWare. Run Vista as the host and WinXP under a Virtual
Machine. Or don't run WinXP at all, if you can help it. Or, best yet, just
put each OS on its own physical system.

All that being said, I can't imagine what is happening on your system. I've
had plenty of experience trying to multi-boot Vista with operating systems
before I decided that it wasn't worth the effort. (It can be done, but, to
me, it isn't worth the effort.) I NEVER saw Vista cause problems within
another co-existing operating system. I mean, if you do something untoward
with the boot manager you might make another OS unbootable, but I never saw
Vista mess up the contents of another operating system's partition. Windows
XP is, however, not nearly so well-behaved. It savages anything that looks
like a restore point that it "thinks" is corrupted.

I would be very interesting in knowing whether or not it was really Vista
that caused this issue with your WinXP installations. Can't see how it could
be the case, but I'm willing to learn.

I hope someone else may have more useful information for you.


FOOT NOTE:
Seriously, you might also consider seeking advice from Ms. Dewey at:
www.msdewey.com

Should you seek advice from Ms. Dewey, cautiously review the Posted dates.
Again, what previously worked, likely, for known reasons, will *not* work
today.

 

[Bill Condie]

I was the guy who started that thread which prompted jimmuh's great
response.(Where is he?)

I had blue screens and unrecoverable system error crashes

Since then I got Vista Business, installed it as a dual boot despite the
earler headaches and warnings, and things were fine for a week. Until today.

The computer died. Now, I'm not saying that Vista or the dual boot killed
it, but I'm having the hardest time with Dell.

They had told me NOT to dual-boot. They wanted me to undo the dual
processor function. But I BOUGHT a dual processor, I said.

The saga continues.

And now the machine, Dimension e510, is dead. They want to send a tech with
parts to fix it. I'm demanding a replacement after already getting a new
processor installed and spending HOURS on online chats with incompetents,
watching them tool around blindly..

The case was elevated to a suspervisor after I watched one jerk make my
PageFile half the physical memory, promising me that would solve
EVERYTHING!.

That supervisor has vanished. Her replacement had to upgrade me another
level and after a callback today he is talking to yet another level.

I shouldda built my own

One I'm up and running again I'll be running VirtualPc until I find out what
the heck is going on

 

[Simon Patten]

FOOT NOTE:
OMG, that is brilliant! And isn't she sexy too! Bye bye Google, I'm
with Ms Dewey now.

 

[Jarhead]

LOL...beats the hell out of the XP "doggy"

OMG, that is brilliant! And isn't she sexy too! Bye bye Google, I'm
with Ms Dewey now.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Rick,

I tried BootPro again, this time I changed the Drive for XP from E: to C:
now everything works fine.

Steve